


Out Come the Wolves

by Viridian5



Category: Andromeda
Genre: Angst, Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-06-18
Updated: 2001-06-18
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dylan sees a side of his crew he wishes he hadn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out Come the Wolves

Harper popped up as if he had springs, fired over the top of the shipping container, and ducked back down. Force lance in hand, ready to shoot again, Dylan watched Beka and Harper, the two of them nearly hip to hip with him like bookends, communicate through hand sign. He heard nothing now other than the usual loading dock sounds. The air reeked of char, hot metal, and molten plastic, while the smoke cut down visibility, though it seemed to be slowly clearing.

Beka peeked around the side, said, "Harper’s right. We’re clear," then slowly stood, her own force lance still ready, just as Harper had his gun doing the same.

The firefight hadn’t taken very long, actually. Once they’d reached cover behind the storage containers, their smart bullets, marksmanship, and personal smart bullet bafflers had given them the advantage over their attackers, who may have had high-powered weaponry but lacked the strategy to use it against prey that didn’t stand still to let itself be shot.

Dylan was tired of everyone deciding that he and his own were prey. That made him even angrier than the ambush itself.

What made him angriest was that the station’s authorities had to have been paid off to allow this to happen as it had. These attackers had shown no sense of subtlety or stealth and simply started loudly firing in a public loading area, yet not a single officer of the law had arrived to investigate.

Both of them bright-eyed and wired, Beka and Harper started checking the bodies. For IDs, Dylan assumed, until he really watched them. Then he crouched near them and hissed, "What are you doing?"

"Extracting payment for wasting our valuable time," Harper said with a grin, looking almost feral as he stuffed gun clips into his pockets. "Spoils of war."

"Beka."

But Beka had a similar look and tossed something to Harper. "You think this is a real Crispos Talani? Looks like it to me."

Harper held the bracelet up to the light. "If it’s not, it’s so good a fake that it might not matter."

Beka shrugged at Dylan. "If we don’t take it, someone else will. Might as well be us." In fact, Harper was waving his gun threateningly at someone who’d been creeping close to their spoils.

As much as Dylan wanted to grab and shake them, his horrified fascination kept him from it and instead made him watch them expertly rifle through clothing and turn over the bloody, flash-burned bodies. He’d seen glimpses of this side of them before, but never so nakedly. They had no shame and apparently saw no reason why they should hide this from him. Had cheerfully looting the dead been such an everyday part of their lives?

They had been a salvage crew, scavengers trying to survive in a kill-or-be-killed era, probably calling their ruthlessness "practicality" or "necessity." Some of the things he’d heard about Harper’s past suggested that his new engineer had lived like a hunted animal on blighted Earth. Dylan knew all of that.

He’d thought he’d made more of a difference for them, though.

As if a few months in the tiny, pseudo-Commonwealth that existed on his single ship could have overwhelmed the survival habits that had kept them alive long enough to become part of his crew.

But they looked at him with what seemed like a dawning realization of why he might be disturbed. "Dylan, it’s--" Beka started.

The station police finally arrived, shouting at them to disarm and come quietly, but not with quite the right vehemence. When they turned, all of them with weapons in hand, to face the patrolmen, the officers were blatantly surprised.

"Aw. Did the wrong people win?" Harper asked. "Hope you got more than half your fee in advance."

"So, how much were the Atalar runners paying you to turn your heads?" Beka asked. So they had done some identification work before their looting. The patrolmen didn’t answer.

Beka and Harper looked at him expectantly. He set the example.

Dylan said, "We reacted in self-defense to an unprovoked attack. In the absence of any official representatives of the law, we had to take matters into our own hands. In fact, it’s apparent that you helped set us up. Thus, we are neither surrendering our weapons nor allowing ourselves to be arrested when we can’t trust you not to lose us in the system or have us fall prey to an unfortunate accident." He hated this, but he saw the necessity. They’d find no justice here. "We’re taking our business elsewhere, somewhere with decent security that does its job." In truth, they’d already finished restocking, but only they knew that. "I’m also filing a complaint with the stationmaster from within my ship to be certain of our safety." The stationmaster was probably on the take as well, but filing gave them the possibility that the complaint might become part of a permanent record. Beka and Harper would no doubt think him naive for that. "We’re leaving now."

Dylan expected Beka and Harper to protest at having to leave spoils yet uncovered, but they simply stood with him and left, each with a weapon ready.

Then again, he’d noticed them surreptitiously moving as he gave his speech. Perhaps they _had_ thoroughly looted the bodies.

Yet they were his crew, honorable people on their own terms. They guarded his back and risked their lives for him, as he did for them. He rarely doubted their loyalty.

Though at times he couldn’t help feeling that only their loyalty to him kept him safe from their practicality.

When they reached the Maru, Beka said, "Dylan, I know you didn’t like doing that, but it was the best reaction. This isn’t the Commonwealth."

He hadn’t influenced them as much as he’d thought, at least not yet. But how much were they and this era influencing him?

 

### End


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